Culpho is a tiny village just 4 miles from Ipswich in Suffolk. It’s existence can be traced back to the Doomsday Book in 1086 when it was recorded as Culfole.Today, the population of Culpho is less than 100.When driving through, if you blinked you would miss it. Despite living a few miles away, it wasn’t a place I had heard of until I cycled through there one day. I stopped at the church as it caught my eye. The parish church of St Botolph dates back to the 13th century and has a slightly more unusual look to many of the other churches in the area.

A few days after I first came across the Parish Church of St Botolphs, I was reading up on Culpho and I discovered a term I hadn’t previously heard of. Culpho is one of a small number of villages in England and Wales known as “Thankful Villages”. The term dates back to the 1930s when Arthur Mee used it in a series of guides he wrote. A “Thankful Village” was a place where none of it’s men were lost during World War I. Just 32 locations were initially identified but more recently, this has been increased to 52 across England and Wales. There are none in Scotland or Ireland. By comparison, there is just one such village in France – Theirville in Normandy.

My images of Culpho Church are for sale on the following Image Stock websites:

If you believe most photography tutorials, you could be forgiven for think that almost every image captured is the result of planning, equipment setup, patience waiting for the right moment and the right conditions. However, this isn’t always the case and you can take some great images at a moments inspiration.

I regularly took an early train to London and the route passes through Manningtree, a little place on the River Stour where the counties of Essex and Suffolk border each other. The river is tidal here and this provides some wonderful lines for an image at low tide. One of the few advantages of catching early morning trains is that at certain times of the year, the sunrises are stunning.

The train line cross the river as it slows down to pull in to Manningtree and although there are several trees in the way, there are some gaps. On one journey earlier this year when I would be passing by around sunrise, I had my camera with me. You could see the sky was colouring up nicely as I stood by the door and with the window open (yes, the train still had windows that open on the doors), I started shooting as the train approach the station. In all, I took around 60 images and in the end, 3 were good enough to take into post.

The image below is one of those 3. Little planning, no special equipment or filters, taken from a moving train.

The French city of Toulouse is not one of the more high profile tourist destinations in France but like many European cities, it offers plenty of wonderful buildings to photograph. The Garonne River runs through the heart of the city from its source in the Pyrenees on its way to Bordeaux and the Atlantic Ocean.

The most spectacular of the bridges spanning the Garonne in Toulouse is without doubt Pont Neuf. Built between 1542 – 1632 (quite a long time to build a bridge), Pont Neuf is made with 7 arches giving a total length of 220m.

I’d previously seen some stunning “blue hour” photos of Pont Neuf so decided that this would be my shot. At this point, the Garonne runs south-north so looking along the bridge from east to west puts the sunset in the perfect position for a sunset shot.

Setting up a shot is easy. There is a wide footpath along the river with plenty of space so you won’t get crowded out.

My intention was end up with 2 shots to blend; the sunset blended with the bridge being lit up once the sun had gone down. When I arrived at Pont Neuf, the sky had clouded over and was completely grey so I wasn’t hopeful of anything special. However, nature can turn in a moment as sunset drew closer, the sky just exploded in colour. The red, orange and purple mix was stunning and I had the sky I wanted for my blend.

At this stage, the lights on the bridge weren’t on so it was a matter of waiting. I was in luck as the lights came on while the colour was still in the sky. This meant, I had everything in a single shot, making the post production work a lot more straightforward.

I didn’t need to do anything with the water. It was perfectly still with no wind or current. The final result is below:

Lake Bled in northern Slovenia is one of the countries biggest tourist attractions and you don’t need to look at too many photos to see why. It is set in the Julian Alps, it is as picturesque a destination as you could wish to see anywhere in the world. It is dominated by Bled Castle overlooking the lake from high up on a cliff on the northern edge with Bled Island and church towards the western end.

The lake itself is around 6.5km (4 miles) in circumference so you can easily walk round in under 90 minutes. From a photography point of view, this means you can get a wide variety of views at all times of the day. I spent a couple of days here and there was always a new place to photograph. Additionally, the different seasons each offer something different.

Bled Castle at Blue Hour

With Blue Hour photos, you ideally want some artificial light on buildings to light them up, giving contrast against the darkening sky. Unfortunately, as stunning as Bled Island is, there is very little artificial light on the church or bell tower. There is no such issue with Bled Castle.

Bled town is at the eastern end of the lake with various hotels, shops and restaurants. The lakeside edge is well light as is the church at the foot of the hill on which Bled Castle is located. With the sun setting over the far end of the lake, all these factors make for the ideal spot for a Blue Hour shot.

For this shot, I positioned myself next to one of the lakeside benches just below the Park Hotel towards the end of Blue Hour. The camera settings were:

ISO 100

f/22

18mm focal length

30 seconds exposure

I was pretty pleased with this image and it didn’t require too much work in post processing to come up with the final result.

There are numerous websites and online communities where members are able to share photos and sell images.

Viewbug is one of such sites I’m a member of where I share images and enter them into various competitions run by the site or contests run by other members. While the chances of winning are slim (due to the thousands of excellent entries), it does help give you feedback on your images and it is sometimes surprising to find that images you really love are not always as popular as you may think they would be. Similarly, some images you may believe aren’t anything special, receive excellent feedback.

Recently, I entered the above image of a Caribbean Spiny Lobster into a user contest called “Sea Life Photo Challenge”. When the winner was announced I was surprised to find that my image had been voted as the Peoples’ Choice winner. Naturally, I was pretty pleased with this news so I thought I’d just share a little bit about this image.

I took it at the very start of a night dive in Cozumel, Mexico in June 2015. My main camera for underwater photography is a Fujifilmn XQ-1. I also have a GoPro Hero4 Black mounted on top of the XQ-1 underwater housing. The housing has twin handles with a Inon D2000 strobe mounted on one side for use with the XQ-1 and a small video strobe mounted on the other side.

I only shoot video on the GoPro which offers a wider angle view than the XQ-1. Typically, I’ll shoot a few seconds video and then select the best image to work on in post production. The wider angle offer by the GoPro means I can get closer to the main subject (in this case the head and body of the lobster) while still keeping more of the image in frame. In this case, I could show more of the lobster’s long antennae in the frame.

Lobsters are a lot easier to photography than some marine creatures. They tend to hide away under rocks during the day (you can still see them) and tend to emerge at night. As they don’t swim off, you can get close to them and take the time to frame your shot. This allowed me to get this one head one which is a type of image I try to look for.

There is a problem is post production as I can only extract JPG images from the GoPro video and not RAW files which would give me more flexibility in editing. Fortunately, the GoPro’s auto settings are pretty good so there isn’t usually too much work to do in order to complete the image.

A couple of tweaks in Photoshop along with using some of the excellent GoogleNik Color Efex Pro filters give me the finished image.

Well, it been a while since I’ve updated the site and I’ve been thinking about the type of articles to publish.

Personally, one of the biggest pleasures I get when travelling is photography and trying to capture images of the places I’ve visited. While there are no shortage of excellent photographers out there to learn from, I’d like to be able to pass on little hints here and there about certain places.

Sunset in Mexico

Sometimes images are planned, others are taking an opportunity. The image above was taken at Playa Norte, Isla Mujeres in Mexico just over a month ago. There were some fabulous sunsets while I was there.

As well as taking photos, I always enhance them or what is known as “post production”. I do this to improve the overall quality of the final image and use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. These are subscription software packages and there are other free options available. The important thing is to understand a few key controls that will help enhance colours, improve the contrasts and balance the lighting of an image.

I’ve got plenty of images to write about from various countries, so I will be posting more regularly going forward.

Rather than pick out a load of pictures I took in 2013 with my trusty old Nikon (or Olympus for underwater pics), I thought I’d showcase my Instagram skills. For those of you who don’t know, Instagram is a popular, free photo sharing app available for your smart phone. It always you to crop, rotate and apply some basic effects to the image taken with the camera on your smartphone and I’ve been pretty impressed how easy it is to use.

Below are a sample of my favourite images I took using my phone. Any editing was done within the Instagram app.

Sunrise over the Cunard Building, Liverpool, UK

Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro

Dawn in Knutsford, north west England

Rainbow over Dedham Vale, England

Houses of Parliament, London

The last sunset over London in 2013

Maracana Stadium, Rio de Janeiro

This isn’t a photo I posted to Instagram (Instagram pics are always square, this is panoramic) but I took it with the camera on my smartphone. It is the famous Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro where the 2014 World Cup Final will be played.

I’ve found Instagram to be a great little app to share photos which. A huge number of people have smartphones with cameras and the app is free to download. It is easy to use and allows you to share your photos quickly and easily onto Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.

Rio de Janiero has some of the most iconic landmarks in the world that are instantly recognisable. The statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooks this sprawling city with the stunning Copacabana and Ipamena beaches, Sugar Loaf mountain and the world famous Maracana Stadium which will be the venue of the 2014 World Cup Final.

Anyone who has been up the base of the 30m tall statue of Christ the Redeemer will tell you of the stunning views over this famous city. However, it is possible to get an even better view….from a helicopter.

There are various companies in Rio offering different helicopter tours. The one I took departed from the lagoon situated a few blocks behind Ipanema. There was a bit of a queue as this is a popular way to see Rio but eventually I got on board for the relatively short trip. By nature, helicopter tours anywhere are short but the views are worth it.

Ipamena and Copacabana beaches in Rio de Janeiro

There were just 3 passengers on our helicopter so we all had a seat next to a window. The pilot took us out to the coast our Ipanema Beach where we could see the stunning blue ocean, golden beaches and even the hotel I was staying in. We flew along the beach towards the headland and the Parque Garota de Ipanema separates Rio’s two most famous beaches; Ipanema and Copacabana. At the far end of Copacabana, the distinctive shape of Sugar Loaf mountain was easy to see.

Next we headed over the statue of Christ the Redeemer which has looked down on the city for more than 90 years. It is a seriously popular place for visitors to go to get a view of the city but their view wasn’t as good as the one I had. Looking down on the view area, there was a mass of people swarming round the base the statue trying to get a spot to take a photo of the statue and the city below.

Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio de Janeiro

To the north, was another of Rio’s famous landmarks – the Maracana Stadium (Estadio do Maracana). Built for the 1950 World Cup, it was here that a world record 199,000 people watched Uruguay beat the host nation 2-1 to win the World Cup. Defeat did not go down well in Brazil and their goalkeeper, Barbosa, was blamed for the defeat by Brazilian society. Shortly before his death in 2000, Barbosa said the maximum sentence in Brazil is 30 years but he had been paying for something he wasn’t responsible for over the last 50 years.

In a few months, the World Cup will return to Brazil and the modern Maracana has been rebuilt and will host the 2014 World Cup Final.

Estadio do Maracana, Rio de Janeiro

The helicopter tour was over all too quickly but there is something magical view the world from such a high vantage point. Was it more expensive that a land based tour – YES, was it shorter than a land based tour – YES……was it worth it – ABSOLUTELY !!

Rhino have always been poached in Africa but until 2005, the numbers of animals killed illegally had been relatively low. Since then, the problem has escalated seriously and in 2012 a total of 668 rhino were poached. The increase has coincided with an increase in demand for rhino horn from Vietnam. The horn is ground into powder, mixed with water and the drink is used as a miracle cure for everything.

As Rhino have few natural predators, they don’t have many off spring so when an unnatural predator in the form of poachers starts to kill them, their numbers will decrease rapidly and even if all the poaching stopped today, it would take a long time to restore the numbers of White and Black Rhino. With rhino horn fetching around 60,000 USD per kilo and the weight of an adult rhino horn can be more than 3kg, it is easy to understand why the rhino horn is so valuable to poachers.

For most of us, the closest we get to rhino poaching stories are reading about it in the news. On a recent trip to South Africa, the story of a poached female white rhino was brought closer to home. We had booked into a small, private game lodge in the Waterberg (Limpopo province) for a safari break. The website listed the various types of game we may find including white rhino. However, a few weeks before we arrived, the poachers struck. There were a pair of white rhino at Bushwa lodge which lies around 10 miles (15km) north of Vaalwater and the entire property is fenced off with locked gates.

The group of poachers had gained access to the land and had tracked the female rhino. The poachers had initially shot the rhino in the spine to disable it and once it had crashed to the ground, they shot it in the head. However, even with their powerful weapons, the female was still alive. Although rhinos have poor eyesight, the female could see the poachers approaching. If you watch any wildlife programmes on TV where animals have been sedated with a tranquilliser, the rangers will often cover the animals eyes to reduce stress.

These poachers had little regard for the welfare of the rhino but as the last thing they wanted was an upset rhino, they brutally hacked out her eye while she was still alive before removing the horn. The carcass was left for the jackal, hyena and honey badgers while the group made off with the horn with little doubt it was destined for the Far East.

The poachers work in small groups and are able to target their prey in various environments such as large, national parks like Kruger or small private game lodges which are dotted all across the country. Far from being clumsy locals with no remorse, the poachers are professional, well organised and armed. They are able to track the rhino whilst leaving few, if any tracks of their own to alert rangers to their presence. They are armed with advanced weapons and are usually prepared to restore to deadly gun battles with authorities rather than face arrest.

One of the rangers took us to the spot where their rhino had been killed. The head had been removed and taken away in the hope of retrieved the bullet but to no avail. The rest was buried but local predators had little trouble locating and digging up the dead rhino. To make matters worse, the female had been pregnant so two rhino were lost. Small safari lodges invest a lot of money to have rhino on their property but they can’t insure them against poaching. A difficult decision has to be made whether to replace the rhino at great cost or not.

It is difficult to see how to solve the problem. Officials at various levels have been found to be involved either directly in poaching activities or by simply ignoring them. There is little point having laws in place to protect rhino if the officials won’t enforce it. My belief is that while the demand for rhino horn is there, poaching will always exist. That means the demand from Vietnam and other Far East countries has to be reduced. Unfortunately, I have no answers as to how this could be achieved.

In one of the northern suburbs of Moscow I found this little park with 12 works of modern art. Closer inspection revealed that each represented a sign of the zodiac.

Despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to find the name of the park but it is only a couple of minutes walk from Sviblovo metro station on the Orange Line (Number 6 – Kaluzhsko–Rizhskaya Line). There is also a pretty little white Russian Orthordox church with a golden onion dome which is also worthy of a photo or two.

When I first visited the park, I didn’t realise at first that each piece of art represented a sign of the zodiac. All the pieces were made from various pieces of scrap metal. The bull representing Taurus and the lion representing Leo were easily identifiable but other pieces were a bit more abstract. For example, instead of an archer for Sagittarius, there was a small boy with a catapult. There was also a bit of humour with Pisces. Two large fish are sharing a meal at a table and the meal is of a fish.

In addition to not finding out the name of the park, I also don’t know who the person was who created this pieces of art so unfortunately, I can’t credit them. However, if you are ever in this part of Moscow, it is a quiet little place to sit and relax for a while.

Images of all pieces of art in the Zodiac Park can be found on my Moscow Flick set:

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